"Christ is risen. He has called you by name!" Easter Dawn 2026

0:00Alleluia Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia. This is the word of the Lord that came to me so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Mary arrives before sunrise. The stone has been rolled away, the tomb stands empty. She runs and tells Peter and John who raced to the grave, peer inside, find nothing and leave. And then Mary stays behind weeping. As we heard, she stooped to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain. They said to her, woman, why are you weeping? She answers, they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.

1:03She knows the body is gone, she does not know where Christ is. This is where the law always leaves you, weeping at an empty tomb, knowing that death has had its way and unable to find your Lord. More than that, in that moment, she is alone in her grief. The disciples have gone home and there this one woman stands isolated, cut off and abandoned. But not quite. She turned around and saw Jesus standing but she did not know that it was Jesus. The risen Lord stands before her and she mistakes him for the gardener. Grief blinds her, despair clouds her vision. She looks directly at Christ and she sees only a stranger. So Jesus says to her, woman, why are you weeping? Who are you seeking? Still she does not recognize him.

2:04She thinks he has carried off the body. So she asks where he has laid it so she can take it away. She still expects a corpse. This is what the law has done. Christ trained her to expect death, indeed only death. And then Christ speaks one word, it's really a sounding word, Mary. He calls her by name. Now she knows his voice. She turns and says to him an aromatic ribonai which means teacher. The sound of her own name spoken by Christ changes everything. He's not remained hidden. He's revealed himself to her personally by speaking her name. And in speaking her name he reconciled her to himself. She is no longer alone, she's no longer cut off. She stands face to face with the risen Lord who knows her, claims her and restores her.

3:10That's lovely. But Christ does more than reconcile Mary to himself. He sends her to deliver this reconciliation to others. Go to my brothers and say to them I am ascending to my father and your father to my God and your God. Mary must go to the disciples. The same men who we just heard for sook Christ denied him and fled from him. She must tell them that Christ calls them his brothers. His father is their father, his God is their God. Thus the resurrection does not just reconcile you to Christ. Does that? But it also reconciles one to another. Christ speaks your name in baptism and makes you his own. And in so doing he joins you to all others whose names he has spoken.

4:12Christ speaks your name the same way he spoke, Mary's. When you were baptized God called you by name and claimed you as his own. As the prophet foretold I have called you by name you are mine. That baptismal calling joins you to Christ's death and resurrection. You were buried with him. You were raised with him and now he speaks your name every time his word comes to you. Every time his body and blood are given to you. Every time absolution is pronounced over you. He calls you by the name he gave you at the font. And he calls the person sitting next to you by name too. You belong to the same Lord. You share the same Father. You are baptized into the same death and resurrection. Mary came to the tomb expecting death. She found an empty grave and wept because she could not find her Lord's body. Then Christ spoke her name and everything that the law had taught her about death now collapses.

5:18The tomb was empty because it could not hold him. An animal died but in Christ all shall be made alive. The second Adam now walks in the garden at dawn calling the daughters and sons of Eve by name, granting them life where the first Adam could only bring death. He does not call you in isolation. As we heard on Friday he calls you into his body, the church, where all who bear his name are reconciled to him and reconciled to one another. That's not death, it's life. Christ sends Mary to his brothers with his message of reconciliation. Here by what that means, Peter denied him three times. Next week we'll hear that Thomas doubted him. All of them fled when he was arrested. They abandoned him. They failed him. What name did they deserve? Maybe towered or traitor?

6:21But what does Christ, the risen Christ, call them? My brothers. It is not called them servants. He's not called them faithless. He does not call them the ones who forsook him. He calls them brothers. He reconciles them to himself by speaking that word over them. And in reconciling them to himself, he reconciles them to one another too. You know what you have done. You know your sins against Christ. You have denied him by your silence. Forsaken him by your cowardice. You have failed him by your weakness. And still he calls you by name. Still he claims you as his own. Still he speaks his absolving word over you and gives you his body and blood to forgive you. He reconciles you to himself and in so doing reconciles you to every other sinner whose name he

7:24has called. This is why Mary must go to the disciples. She is the apostle to the apostles. She has seen the risen Lord. She has heard him speak her name. But the gospel is not complete until she tells others. Christ has reconciled her to himself so that she can proclaim reconciliation to his brothers who are estranged, isolating, isolated and despairing to. This Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord. She became the first witness to the resurrection. The first to proclaim that Christ is alive. The first to announce that reconciliation between God and man. Not surprising the disciples did not believe her. They thought it was all nonsense. They could not grasp that Christ had risen and that he had called them his brothers again.

8:27Their sins stood between them and the gospel. Their guilt convinced them that this kind of reconciliation was never possible. Maybe it is with you too. You hear that Christ has called you by name and baptism. You hear that he has reconciled you to himself through his death and resurrection. And yet you have a hard time believing it because your conscience still accuses you. Your sins still weigh on you. And you cannot fathom that Christ would claim someone like you. The Christ has spoken. He has called you by name. He has reconciled you to himself. The lack is not in his word but in your faith. And here is the mercy. Christ does not wait for you to believe perfectly before he reconciles you to make all the right sounding words. He does not require your faith to be strong before he speaks your name.

9:32He calls you first. He reconciles you first. He claims you first. Maybe it's true. Your faith is weak. Your conscience still weighs on you. Your sins are many. But what of it? He still speaks your name and makes you his own. That reconciliation then extends beyond you and Christ because when Christ reconciles you to himself, he reconciles you to everyone else who bears his name. You sit here this morning, surrounded by other baptized sinners. They have failed Christ just as you have. Maybe you know how they have failed Christ. They also carry guilt just as you do. They struggle without just as you do. And yet Christ has called them by name just as he has called you. His father is their father. His God is their God. And you are joined to them in baptism, joined to them in the body and blood of Christ,

10:34joined to them in the resurrection that swallows up death forever. This means that like Mary or the disciples, you cannot isolate yourself and your sin. Don't be like Mary, standing alone at the tomb weeping over your failures, convinced that you are cut off from Christ and from His people. Don't be like the disciples, locked away in the upper room for fear of the Jews. You have nothing to fear. Christ has spoken your name. He has joined you to His body. He has reconciled you to Himself and to one another. When you receive absolution, you receive it alongside every other center in this room. When you eat Christ's body and drink His blood, you do so, joined to everyone else at the altar. Which means you are not alone, not in your sins, because you are in Christ, you are reconciled. Mary left the tomb and went to the disciples. She proclaimed what she had seen and heard.

11:35She announced His reconciliation. You do the same. Christ has called you by name. He has reconciled you to Himself. And now you too can go to those around you, your family, your neighbors, your fellow Christians, and you proclaim the same reconciliation, forgiving as you have been forgiven, speaking those words of peace to those estranged from God and from one another. Not saying that the tomb is empty, which means death is defeated, that Christ is risen and He calls His people by name. As we saying, you make known to me the path of life in your presence, there is fullness of joy at your right hand, our pleasures forever more. The path of life is not one that you walk alone, not anymore. Christ makes it known to you by speaking your name and joining you to His death and resurrection. And He joins you to all the others whose names He has spoken.

12:38We walk the path of faith together, reconciled to Christ and to one another, heirs of the kingdom of heaven and partakers of the resurrection. Tomb is empty. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. He is called you by name. He has reconciled you to Himself and to one another. His Father is your Father, His God is your God, and in His presence, this day there is fullness of joy forever more. In the name of the Father, end of the Son, end of the Holy Spirit. Amen.